


Please Try To Never Grow Up

by akasharpiegirl



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Gen, Genius Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Happy Hogan is a Good Bro, I was doing my makeup and heard a song and got this idea and here we are five weeks later, Irondad, Morgan graduates, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Mid-Credits Scene Compliant, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker is a Good Bro, Precious Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Supportive May Parker (Spider-Man), Teen Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony thinks about Morgan growing up, Uncle Happy Hogan, hope u enjoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 11:10:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20290495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akasharpiegirl/pseuds/akasharpiegirl
Summary: Tony thinks back to Morgan growing up before watching her graduating high school.





	Please Try To Never Grow Up

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I'm back with another Irondad fic. I got the inspiration behind this while doing my makeup for school and Never Grow Up by Taylor Swift came on shuffle from my senior year playlist... I graduate from high school in May as well so that's another reason I wanted to write this. So, hope you enjoy! Don't forget to leave kudos and comments if you enjoyed! (Tell me if you want more mini stories about Morgan growing up, and if you want anything in particular, please be sure to list that too!)

Graduation day: May 24, 2036:  


Pepper and Tony waved goodbye to Morgan as she drove to the arena she'd be graduating at. They'd be by there an hour later since graduates had to be there earlier than everyone else.

Tony couldn’t believe it. His daughter was about to graduate from high school in just a few short hours. How could that be? In a few months, Morgan would be moving in to her dorm at MIT. Just yesterday it seems as if Pepper handed him their newborn daughter for the first time in the hospital, right? And just yesterday she was toddling out of her little fort telling him (read: threatening) to ‘define lunch or be disintegrated’, right? How could she possibly have grown up that quick? 

Morgan’s first day of kindergarten:  


Tony turned off Morgan’s night light as he heard Pepper call for him downstairs, “It’s time to take Morgan to school.”

“School? Holy cow. She’s old enough for that now?”, Tony asked himself aloud as he grabbed Morgan’s backpack from her closet and closed Morgan’s door, quickly finding his down the stairs. Just in time to see Morgan twirl around in her red polka dot Minnie Mouse dress that Pepper bought Morgan a few months ago. 

“Come on, Maguna here’s your backpack. You ready to go?”, Tony said as he handed her the London themed backpack that was filled with crayons, pencils, a composition book, and the purple folder she was given at kindergarten orientation. 

“Yep!”, Morgan stated with glee, jumping as she spoke. 

“Well let’s get going, kiddo,” Tony said, taking her left hand as Pepper grabbed Morgan’s right. 

“Don’t want you to be late, plus I can’t be either,” Pepper stated as she helped Morgan into her booster seat that was nestled in their newly purchased minivan. 

————

“How was your first day of school?”, Tony asked as he saw a giddy Morgan hop in the backseat.

“Oh my goodness, Daddy! It was amazing!”, Morgan exclaimed once the employee closed Morgan’s door for her.

“That’s great,” Tony smiled at his little girl from the rearview mirror. “What did you do? Anything special?”

“We drew ourselves on paper, she had us say stuff about us, and she wrote that stuff down for us around our drawings. Mrs. Daniels is going to put them on her board before everyone gets there tomorrow. I got to check out a book from the library! I got to help Mrs. Daniels set up a math thing too, that was cool,” Morgan rambled on about her day. 

“You had a cool day, huh? Gotta say I wish I had as cool of a day as you did, Morgan,” Tony said in response.  


Morgan’s first day of high school:

  


Tony looked over to Morgan, who was sitting in the passenger's seat. She had been biting her nails and couldn’t stop fidgeting. “You worried?”, Tony asked upon the discovery. “How come?” 

“It’s just different,” Morgan answered. “Everything’s weighted now.”

“It’s not actually that different,” Tony answered. 

“How so?”, Morgan asked.

“Ah, well, let’s see. You were in QUEST for all of your elementary and middle school years. The success you showed during that time enabled the board to approve you for honors courses for both your middle school and tentatively for all of your high school career. When you took them in middle school, you got out with 4.0, am I correct? If they didn’t think you were capable of living up to that, they wouldn’t have placed you in these classes you’re about to embark on. Though I’m not on the school board, I know that approving you was the right decision they made. I’m not just saying that because you’re my kid,” Tony answered. “You’ll get through it. You just have to find a balance between work, extracurriculars, and sleep. And I know your Momma won’t let you skip out on sleep for _anything._ You got your sleeping habits from me and I’m sincerely sorry about that.”

Morgan laughed at Tony’s last statement. “Thanks, Dad.” 

“And hey,” Tony said upon stopping at the school drop off lane. 

“Yeah, Dad?”, Morgan asked as she gathered all of her things in order to run to her first class once this conversation would come to a stop.

“Your Mom and I, we're so proud of you. You don’t have to have everything figured out as soon as you walk in those doors. Anyone who says you have to know your future down to the last millisecond, they are liars, understand?”, Tony asked. “Your Mom and I, we want you to figure out what you want for your life at your own pace. Yeah, it’s good to have a plan but it needs to be editable as life interferes. Take things poco a poco, remember?”

“Yeah, I know. Little by little. Thank you for that,” Morgan cracked a real smile with no laugh for the first time since Tony had taken her annual back to school picture on the porch this morning. “Alright, I gotta go. Love you tons.” 

“Love you 3000, kiddo,” Tony said as Morgan got out of the car and ran upstairs to the main office

  


The day Morgan got accepted into MIT:

  


“It’s a big day for Morgan,” Pepper greeted upon exit of her car in their garage.

Tony looked up from his work, “Hmm. How so aside from her midterms? I'm failing to remember anything specific, was that all?”

“MIT announced that their college decisions had been sent out this morning,” Pepper answered. 

Tony’s eyes widened at the sudden realization, “Oh yeah, that's right! Do you think she has seen it?” 

“No, because she would've broken down the doors screaming for us to come in once she barely saw the sender’s address and subject line,” Pepper laughed. 

“Then thank God she hasn't seen it yet,” Tony joined in with Pepper’s laughter. 

“Can you put the dinner we discussed this morning in the stove? I’ve got some more work to do,” Pepper said after the couple shared a kiss. “But call for me if you bring up the email to Morgan before I get done.”

“Of course and yes I’ll tell you in case you don’t already hear Morgan screaming upon realizing the decisions are out,” Tony answered. 

————

“Hey, Maguna,” Tony greeted as he sat down next to Morgan in their couch. ”How do you think your midterms went, kiddo?" 

“I think they went well, I-“, Morgan looked up from her phone and barely got out her whole sentence.

“That’s good! Have you checked your email today?”, Tony inquired quickly.

“I haven’t, why?”, Morgan asked. “As you said, I had all my midterms today. If I wasn’t taking them I was either napping or studying in the library, didn’t look at my phone at all today until I got home.” 

“You said you weren’t going to sleep in the library anymore,” Tony stated.

“Today was a special case, Dad,” Morgan laughed slightly. “But, what was it about my email?”

“College decisions were released this morning,” Tony answered nonchalantly.

Morgan’s phone fell out of her hand, “Today? They couldn’t have picked any other day to send them out?!”

Tony sent off a quick text to Pepper that he knew she’d see quickly, ‘I just told her’. 

“Then pull up the email, kiddo,” Pepper came down a second later as Morgan scrolled through her email inbox.

Morgan stared at the subject line. “I can’t do it,” Morgan said a moment later, the hand holding her phone was shaking. 

“Just open the email, Maguna, you won’t know until you click the portal in the email. You’ve got a little more time to prepare for an answer,” Tony encouraged her.

“I can do this, I can do this,” she said upon clicking the email. 

“Hi, the waiting is over. We know that waiting can be really stressful. Therefore, the Office of Admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is happy to release their accumulated admissions decisions for the class of 2039. Please click the link below to see your application update via your application portal,” Morgan mumbled to herself, she had no idea that she had gotten up and began to pace in response to nerves. “I’m not going to get in.”

Her parents had stood up with her and close behind. “You’re going to get in,” Pepper attempted to encourage Morgan.

“I know you are going to,” Tony agreed. 

“I can’t open it, I’m too scared,” Morgan looked up, her hands still hovering over the submit login button for her application portal.

Tony took the liberty of taking her phone, “If you can’t open it, I will. ‘Cause I know you’ll get in, and so does Mom. Never doubt your mother, kiddo.”

“Hey!”, Morgan called, “Fine, I’ll open it.” But she was too late, and Tony had already clicked the login button. 

But as fate would have it, it took a moment to load due to the amount of kids finally having the time to check their own application status. “Come on, come on-“

“Did you get in?”, Pepper and Tony asked simultaneously.

It was silent for a minute as Morgan frantically read the update. An ‘O’ formed as she read.

“So?”, Tony asked.

“I got in,” Morgan mumbled. The shock fell over her. “Mom, Dad, I got in! I got in!” She squealed a moment later as she did a little jump.

Tony and Pepper swarmed her with hugs. 

“All that worrying about it, was it worth it? You got in, Morgan! I knew you would,” Tony said to Morgan. “I’m so proud of you, kid. You have no idea how proud I am of you.”

“You have no idea how proud I am of you as well,” Pepper said.

  


Tony, Pepper, and Peter help Morgan decorate her graduation cap:

  


Tony walked into the family’s dining room to see Morgan, Pepper, and Peter all gathered around the table looking at her tablet and her graduation cap after dinner.

“Dad, hey! We need a deciding vote on my graduation cap design,” Morgan said as Tony sat down at the table with them. Morgan turned the tablet toward Tony and began to scroll through each one. “Which do you like better? The Newsies one, the science pun one, the Friends one, the Ravenclaw one, or the Hamilton one?”

“First off, I like them all,” Tony answered. “But tell me the votes.”

“I like the Ravenclaw one, Peter likes the pun, and Mom likes the Hamilton one,” Morgan answered.

Tony nodded, “Hmm. Personally, I like all of them except for the pun one. The Newsies one is cool in terms of the fact that it’s a quote from your favorite musical song, the Friends one is funny, and the Hamilton one because of the quote a couple of college credits and my top-notch brain. You know, since you technically have already finished your first year of college while in high school. But, I love the Ravenclaw design with that Peter Pan quote the most.”

“Then it’s settled. Hey, Peter? Can you get the ziplock baggie from my backpack that says Ravenclaw on it? You’re the closest one to my backpack, so...”, Morgan asked, laughing.

“Mhm,” Peter laughed with Morgan before getting Morgan’s backpack.

Peter came back a few seconds later

“Dad and I will sort out the letters for the quote and your name, how about you two quickly put on that Ravenclaw patch?”, Pepper asked upon his arrival.

———

“Have you gotten any emails about your dorm and roommate placement yet?”, Pepper asked as the sibling duo returned with the Ravenclaw patch attached to Morgan’s graduation cap.

“Yeah, I actually got one this morning,” Morgan answered. “I don’t have a roommate assigned yet but my dorm has been assigned.”

“So, where are you assigned?”, Peter asked. “I might’ve been placed in a dorm near yours when I was there.”

“McCormick Hall,” Morgan answered.

“Oh, that’s not far from the dorm I stayed in,” Peter stated.

“For you,” Tony answered. “You and your spider-kid stamina.”

“That’s like a ten minute walk,” Peter stated.

“Still a lot,” Tony answered. “The girl who I worked with on many projects stayed in that dorm.”

“You big baby,” Pepper snickered as she placed the last two letters on the graduation cap.

“Shush,” Tony mumbled. 

“Oh my God, I love it,” Morgan said as she picked up her graduation cap. “Thank you for helping me.”

  


Graduation day: May 24, 2036:

  


“It is my honor to introduce the class of 2036’s valedictorian, who will be presenting the last farewell speech today, Morgan Hope Stark,” the salutatorian said before giving up the podium to Morgan.

Morgan set her speech on the podium and adjusted the microphone to her height. “Good evening, ladies, gentlemen, and humans of all genders. First off, I would like to personally thank and welcome the faculty, staff, my parents, my honorary brother, honorary aunts, honorary uncles, and the wonderful people of the class of 2036 here with me today. I would not be where I am if it wasn’t for all of you. I would thank my alpaca for being here in spirit because this lovely venue has rules against animals.”

A round of applause went around a moment later.

“I want to go ahead and say this will be a bit of an unconventional speech. Instead of laying out the same Pinterest styled advice that is said every year, I want to pull from my own experiences in the hope that maybe my advice gathered from experiences will help someone. At the start of this spring semester, Mrs. Deal, the principal, caught me as I was leaving campus for a college chemistry class I had an hour from then. She said this to me, and I quote, the faculty and staff along with a select portion of the student body have decided to award you with the student most changed since freshman year award at the senior honors night in April,” Morgan explained. “At first I was taken aback. Did I change? For the good? For the bad? What on Earth did I do to earn this? Turns out, the award is given to those who show any significant great change. Whether that be in grades, self esteem, extracurricular standing, etcetera. Recipients of that award, have to give a speech on change. At least at this school. So I looked back on my high school career and realized what category I fell under. Self esteem. And I already had to give the valedictorian speech, so why not intertwine them both? So without further ado, here is my speech entitled ‘How a twenty-five percent Italian high school student got through high school because her parents kept telling her to take things ‘poco a poco’.”

Morgan looked over to her family before looking back at her paper, “Growing up, I was known as the kid who couldn’t stop, the kid who did it all. I was the kid that hid behind her accomplishments. I didn’t have many friends because I didn’t have any time for myself. I took dance lessons which ended up turning into dance team, I was in chess and robotics club, Model U.N., Acadeca… You name it. And against my family’s wishes, I refused to drop anything when I started my freshman year. Which, as you can imagine, did not bode well with my mental or physical health. In dance, I made it all the way up to the teen elite category which means I rehearsed 12 hours a week - which is basically four hours every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Add on acadeca, Model U.N., robotics, and chess practice and competitions. Along with everyone in school and out pressuring you to decide what college to pick and what career to go after. Finally, add homework onto all of that and it’s the most stressful thing you can bury yourself into. I would spend hours into the wee morning finishing AP homework when I should’ve been sleeping and spent my time in the library during free period sleeping instead of studying. I guess you could say I got my sleeping habits from my Dad.”

Tony couldn’t help but laugh at the call out as the rest of the room erupted in laughter. 

“Ever since I was a little girl, the phrase ‘poco a poco’ floated around my house. If you have even a little bit of Italian blood coursing through your veins, are in chorus or band, or you took Italian as your foreign language course, you probably know what that phrase means. But if you don’t, it means ‘little by little’ or ‘gradually’ when translated into English. My parents always told me this when they saw life pulling me under. The first time my family said this to me when I started school, was in first grade. I wanted to get into QUEST so bad but had to wait on the testing scores to be sent back to us. My Dad looked at me, took my hands into his and said, ‘Hey, everything is going to work out exactly the way it’s supposed to. Remember what Mommy and I tell you all the time? You’ve got to take things poco a poco. You’ll get those scores back and I have a feeling you’ll get in.’ And what do you know? He was right and I got in,” Morgan continued.

The audience mutually ‘awed’ at that statement.

“On my first day of freshman year, before we shared our ‘i love yous’ and I jumped out of the car, my Dad turned to me, and said… You guessed it. ‘It’s good to have a plan but it needs to be editable as life interferes. Take things poco a poco, remember?’ That definitely wasn’t what changed my mind about hiding behind what I buried my life in. But, it was a start,” Morgan smiles at the memories flooding back to her. 

“It was the middle of my sophomore year when my parents jammed it into my thick skull that I could slow down. It was the day that video of me running all the way from the library to the auditorium had surfaced online. Yet, too funny to bargain off of social media. I had gotten home from a competition practice and still had three and a half hours of homework to finish. I kept falling in and out of sleep, and therefore it had just hit two in the morning the next day. My Mom was apparently getting water from the kitchen and when she came back upstairs, she saw my lamp on. A slight knock woke me up for the fifth time that night, as I sat at my desk filled with Geometry homework. Mom had to drag me from my desk to my bed and wouldn’t leave till I fell asleep. According to my Mom, because my poor memory failed to remember much, and from the help of FRIDAY, my Mom told me this, ‘Honey, I think I’m going to have to draw the line here today. It’s almost 2:30 in the morning. What you’re doing to yourself isn’t healthy. You haven’t been the same since school and dance started back up. You’ve been tired, you’ve been unhappy. Detrimental to yourself emotionally, you were diagnosed with Depression because of how much time you spent filling up your college applications, which affected your mental health. You’re so afraid of not being good enough, but you’re missing something. You are good enough. Baby girl, your Dad and I don’t like seeing you this way. You need more than three hours of sleep, you can’t run on that forever. If you don’t have time for your needs, family, or school, that’s a problem, Morgan. At the end of the day, extracurriculars won’t matter to colleges if they show that your life derails when you try to do too much. You’re going to have to take this poco a poco from now on, okay? And we’re going to have to start by taking something out of your schedule, and that’s probably going to have to be your dance team.’ Though I was exhausted I was still stubborn, I bargained to instead of completely cutting out dance, I went from competition team to the recreational level. Which meant no competitions, and only an hour and a half of practice each week. I also quit acadeca and chess team after that night,” Morgan felt tears start to come to her eyes and she tried to blink them away.

“I made the best friends I ever had upon making a switch to recreational. I finally got the sleep I needed every single day, and none of it came from me napping in the library after that point forward, except for second semester midterms this year. I couldn’t help that. I was able to keep my grades up without all nighters. And most importantly, my mental health and my relationship with my family was starting to heal. That’s how I changed. Every single person in my family had to break some type of armor they surrounded themselves with, whether that be figurative armor or literal, and oftentimes people hiding behind it don’t quite realize it or don’t realize how much it hurts them. My Mom hid behind the fear of not being good enough at her job, my Dad, who was her boss for a while, was who broke that fear of hers. My Dad, he hid behind a lot. He hid behind the fear of the thought that he was not a good Dad, he also hid behind his literal Iron Man persona for years. My Mom helped him break his fear and helped him put the persona behind him after The Blip in 2023. And me, I hid behind the fear that I wouldn’t measure up to my parents. The kid to former CEO and current CEO of the biggest tech conglomerate in the world. You gotta admit, that’s a little bit intimidating. My parents, ironically to the situation, were the people who helped me break down that fear, with such a simple phrase. I couldn’t be more grateful for them. So, what I want to say to the class of 2036, is this,” Morgan paused as she noticed that her voice began to waver.

“Good and bad life situations will come, and those situations, they’ll try to and will change you. Don’t be afraid to change. But in this world, you have to be confident and take it from me, you shouldn’t fear failure so bad that you’ll crash. I can tell you, I was beginning to crash in my sophomore year until my Mom dug me out of that spiral. Change and failure is inevitable, but it is not the end of the world. If every single one of us lived in the fear of failure, every single one of us wouldn’t be where we are today. That doesn’t just cover the students here, it covers every family member, friend, and other guests in the audience and every single faculty and staff member sitting behind me and standing around the room. I can guarantee you that if we all were held back by fear, the majority of us would still be in kindergarten, a freshman at Harvard, stuck at an entry level position at a newspaper production company... Fill in the blank for your situation. Some of us want to be neurosurgeons, marketers, pilots, social workers… When life inevitably pulls us back together for our class reunion, and all of us have families, I really want to be able to say I got to see the same job names I saw on everyone’s vision boards that we completed at the start of our senior year, under our names on those little ‘hello, my name is’ stickers. From the overachiever girl who learned how to deal with taking things slow and understanding what fear can do to you, I sincerely hope we all accomplish our dreams. Take your time, but don’t give up. Go forth, into work, the military, technical college, or university with the same optimism all of us have today. Cause today, when we walk across this stage with our diplomas, that marks the first day of the rest of our lives. Good luck, class of 2036 and I’m sorry for keeping you for too long,” Morgan said before leaving the stage and waiting to turn right back around to graduate. 

It was all a blur, hearing her name being the first called. “Morgan Hope Stark,” the principal said as she handed Morgan her diploma. A few moments later she sat back down and watched the rest of her peers receive their diplomas. The hour breezed by for her, because for her, it seemed like the next minute she was throwing her Ravenclaw graduation cap up in the air, quickly picking it up, and searching for the group of people that came to support her outside of the arena. She passed by a few kids she knew from academic decathlon who complimented her on her speech before finally finding the group of six people who came to see her graduate. Tony, Pepper, Peter, May, Happy, Natasha, and Rhodey. 

“Morgan, I’m so proud of you,” Natasha was the first who greeted the new high school graduate. “You look so grown up, seems like the last time I saw you, you were only five. How’d that happen, huh?”

Morgan smiled at Natasha as the two hugged, “Thank you, Aunt Nat, you’re so sweet.”

“That speech was beautiful, I’m so grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to see you grow up,” Happy congratulated her. 

“I never thought I’d see the day that Tony would have a kid, but it came 18 years ago, and you’re the coolest teenager I now know. You’re going to rock college, kid,” Rhodey gave Morgan a side hug. 

Peter handed her a card, followed by May who handed her a small bouquet of daisies. Peter whispered to her as the brother sister duo hugged, “If I would’ve fallen into fear, your Dad wouldn’t have been able to share all those stories about Spider-Man to you when you were little. I’m so proud of you kid.”

Morgan laughed. 

Pepper and Tony pulled her into a group hug before Pepper handed Morgan another bouquet of flowers. Tony handed her a balloon that was shaped like a grad cap in Morgan’s empty hand. 

“Thank you guys, for everything,” Morgan teared up again. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“You’re going to do amazing things, Maguna. I just know it, and I’m already so proud of you. I love you so much, kid,” Tony looked at his daughter with pride. How did he get so lucky to have the family that he had?

“I love you so much, Morgan. That speech, it brought your Dad to tears just so you know,” Pepper smiled at her husband and daughter. “You’re going to change the world, sweetheart, and I’m so glad I get to see it happen.”

“Did he now?”, Morgan laughed.

Tony reluctantly admitted to the statement with a nod.

“I love you guys too,” Morgan smiled. “So much.”

"Just try to never completely grow up for me, okay? I don't want you to lose that happiness," Tony said to Morgan as the group of eight left the venue to grab some dinner and ice cream. They'd have a bigger celebration tomorrow. 


End file.
